Work It Out

Inspirational song: Mission Impossible, Original Theme (Lalo Schifrin)

So this is what failure looks like. Or more accurately, this is what a pity win looks like.

Six of us went to an escape room this evening. The kids had given their dad four passes to this particular event for Christmas... in 2018. We aren’t really good at using gift cards right away, so it took being reminded over and over, and for his birthday to roll around twice before we made concrete plans. One of the girls ended up passing on going with us (and the other lives out of state), but our youngest and her husband, plus neighbor T and his girlfriend joined us for an hour-long attempt to solve all the puzzles needed to get out of the rooms.

The name of our room was “Dead Presidents,” and we knew nothing of the theme when we arrived. We got little more than “it was a bank heist” when we were turned loose and told to solve it. There really was little instruction, other than basic house rules that if there was a sticker of a hand with a No sign through it, it meant don’t touch that item, and that there was no reason to overturn the heavy furniture or climb through ceiling tiles.

Now I consider each of us quite smart, in very different ways. Some are good at math, some at reasoning, some well-rounded in their education. (Not saying who is who. Talents overlap.) But with so little to go on, it really took us a long time to get headed in the right direction, once we cleared the first hurdle or two. We were given a walkie-talkie to use when we needed a hint (and were allowed up to four). We should have asked sooner.

On the chance that someone from my hometown reads this, and would actually try this escape room, I will give no information that would give them an undue advantage if they go.

I thought we were sailing to success when we opened the side door of the room with twelve minutes to spare. When I realized we had to solve a whole second room, I plunged into despair. Room two was shorter and easier, but still we had to do a lot of work. We ran out of time when we were super close to finishing, and the monitor told us to go ahead and work through it. It took us an extra 4:53 to finish. That is still a fail, even though we worked out the puzzles.

The monitor told us this room has an 8% success rate, so we weren’t supposed to feel bad. Didn’t help all that much. I’m a 90+ percentile kind of girl. I don’t like failure. This left all of us wanting to go back and try a different room. Our daughter has picked out one called “Kaboom.” We are working out whether to go before or after the newest Smith arrives.